Amarista, Smith save Padres' win

Padres' Seth Smith is welcomed in the dugout after his decisive solo home run off Minnesota Twins relief pitcher Anthony Swarzak in the 10th inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2014, in Minneapolis. The Padres won 5-4.

/ (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

Padres' Seth Smith is welcomed in the dugout after his decisive solo home run off Minnesota Twins relief pitcher Anthony Swarzak in the 10th inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2014, in Minneapolis. The Padres won 5-4.

Padres' Seth Smith is welcomed in the dugout after his decisive solo home run off Minnesota Twins relief pitcher Anthony Swarzak in the 10th inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2014, in Minneapolis. The Padres won 5-4. (/ (AP Photo/Jim Mone))

As a rule, Bud Black doesn’t doubt his players. Yet off the bat, the Padres’ upbeat skipper wasn’t sure what sort of chance Alexi Amarista would have at catching Eduardo Escobar’s two-strike drive with the winning run standing on second base in the last of the ninth inning Wednesday afternoon.

Positioning sure wasn’t on the diminutive utilityman’s side.

“Off the bat? No,” Padres manager Bud Black said moments after Seth Smith’s 10th-inning homer lifted the Padres to a 5-4 win over the Twins on getaway day at Target Field. “Just ‘cause it was struck well and we had him shaded a little bit to left center and that ball was on the pull side. And then I saw Lexi’s route and you’re watching Lexi and watching the ball and in-flight you’re thinking maybe. …

“You sort of visualize the positive when you’re in our dugout. … I saw maybe Lexi getting there, diving and reaching out to make a play.”

And then he did.

Amarista’s sprawling catch in right-center after a lengthy run left the winning run on the bases a half-inning after Everth Cabrera’s sacrifice fly to right tied the game for a second time. Smith drove in his second run of the day on his team-leading 12th homer to open the 10th, new closer Joaquin Benoit stranded two runners to save his fourth game and the Padres won for the 11th time in 18 games following a post-All-Star break run filled with all sorts of change.

One more is official now: Ranger Assistant General Manager A.J. Preller has been named the replacement for former GM Josh Byrnes, who was dismissed in late June following his offense’s historic no-show throughout the first half of the season.

A cloud of uncertainty lifted, the organization can now move forward. The players, of course, already had.

“That stuff’s so far removed from us that it honestly has no bearing on us,” Smith said. “I’m sure there’s some business with some guys that can’t get done because of not having a GM, but other than that, the team as a whole is not affected at all.”

Smith’s business sure hasn’t been – on or off the field.

Signed a two-year, $13 million extension shortly after Byrnes’ dismissal, Smith leads the Padres in batting average (.290), RBIs (34) and total bases (159) after two more hits Wednesday, including an RBI double off Kevin Correia (6 IP, 3 ER) in a two-run sixth that tied the game at 3-3 as the Padres looked to avoid losing their 10th straight game at the hands of the Twins.

Odrisamer Despaigne, however, wasn’t a ton of help.

He gave that run right back on Trevor Plouffe’s run-scoring single, which chased the 27-year-old Cuban rookie with four runs allowed on eight hits and three walks in 5 2/3 innings. Plouffe also yanked a hanging curve into the left-field stands in the first inning as Despaigne saw a recent rut move to 15 runs – 12 earned – allowed in 15 innings following last month’s near no-no on a season-high 123 pitches.

“He’s been a little too up and out over the plate for the most part,” Black said after Despaigne’s ERA jumped from 1.31 to 3.10 over his last three starts. “He hung a breaking ball today for the homer and they nicked him a little bit for a few runs. This one was not real rough, but it’s not what we expect from what we saw the first number of starts.

“Again, he’s still learning, too, about the National League and American baseball. He’ll be a quick study to adjust back.”

The Padres can only hope that adjustment is as quick as Amarista’s first step in the ninth, sparing Kevin Quackenbush (2-2) from a loss after the rookie reliever’s leadoff walk stood 180 feet from the plate after pinch-runner Eduardo Nunez swiped second base with two outs.

Smith, for one, had a unique vantage point of that jump from his spot in left field when the ball off Escobar’s bat appeared ticketed for the expansive real estate beyond Amarista’s shallow positioning on Quackenbush’s 0-2 fastball.

“Yeah, I had a good one,” Smith said. “I could see him and the ball and where they were going to meet, and I could tell that he was going to get to it. I didn’t know if he was going to get to it get to it – you know, make the catch – but I could tell he was going to be around the same place when the ball landed.